ALMOST every reader of the New Testament must have noticed that the Lord,
while He was in the world, in reply to the questions and suggestions of
men, often made remarks which almost necessarily led them to the
contemplation of things which were altogether above or within the
immediate objects of their inquiry. It is also observable that this was
commonly effected, not by evading the direct questions, nor by introducing
a subject obviously and distinctly new, but by using words with which all
are familiar, in a new sense. Thus it was His constant aim to open,
and illustrate, and fill with life abundantly. He did not oppose and
reject the common forms of life and manners, nor discard the words in
common use; but taught His followers what they must do in order that all
these things might be clean unto them. He did not object to the
tithing of mint, and anise, and cumin, but taught that the weightier
matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith, should be also attended
to. In a word, He came not to destroy, but to fulfill.
We shall doubtless be able to make our meaning plainer, by a few examples.
To the woman of Samaria, ‘Jesus answered, if thou knewest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith to thee, give Me to drink, thou wouldest have
asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.’ And
afterwards He added, ‘whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him, shall never thirst.’ On the same occasion, after His disciples
had returned and prayed Him, saying, Master, eat, He said unto them, I
have meat to eat that ye know not of.’ Thus while they were
thinking of the loaves and the fishes, He taught them a new signification
of eating and drinking, and thus prepared their minds to become acquainted
with the quality of that bread, of which if a man eat, he shall live
forever. The same remarks are strikingly applicable to the words,
‘destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ He had
been driving from the temple at Jerusalem those that bought and sold, and
overturning the tables of the money-changers. And when inquired of
by the Jews, ‘what sign showiest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest
these things,’ in His reply, ‘He spoke of the temple of His body.’
these examples will be sufficient to explain our meaning, and we proceed
to make some remarks upon the particular words which we have placed at the
head of this article.
The question in this case was, ‘Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed
thee; what shall we have therefore?’ This question of Peter follows
immediately after the conversation with the young man who had great
possessions, and who went away sorrowful, because the Lord said, ‘if thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me.’ The
disciples had, in one sense, left all and followed the Lord. But to
do this, in the literal sense only, implies no qualifications, for the
kingdom which is not of this world. Even this, however, was not a
thing which all were willing to do, nor one which the disciples were at
liberty to leave undone. They were specially called by the Lord, and
appointed to this work. But this external, literal compliance, to
which Peter alluded, was but the washing the outside of the cup and of the
platter. There was something more necessary to qualify them for the
reception of spiritual life, and for the performance of spiritual uses.
Therefore these rewards are promised to those who have ‘followed Him in
the regeneration.’
All must perceive that to follow the Lord in the regeneration consists in
the internal purification of the heart and life; but it may be well to
notice more distinctly what is implied by these words. It is a
following of the Lord. We are called to go no where, except where He
has gone before us and prepared a place for us, and is even now ready to
come again and receive us unto Himself. This is a point which
deserves particular attention. The regeneration of man consists in
following the Lord. The work of redemption which the Lord wrought,
was a redemption from the power of evil. This was effected by His
continual combats with the evil spirits of the hells, and His victories
over them. It was for the purpose of engaging in these combats and
thus relieving man from their influence, that the humanity was assumed.
This was a medium into which the Divinity could flow and operate Its own
will continually, and which was at the same time accessible to the
influence of the infernal spirits. And the nature of the infernal
spirits is such that they assault all within their reach, and their
efforts are in proportion to the power with which they are met and
resisted. The victories therefore of the Lord Himself, in the
temptations which the maternal humanity suffered, were victories over all
the hells. These victories were also complete. The devils were
cast out by the finger of God. ‘He saw, and there was no man, and
wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His arm brought
salvation unto Him: and His righteousness, it sustained Him.’
This process in the humanity which was assumed is called the Lord's
glorification. And when all the evils which pertained to the
maternal humanity were completely expelled by the influence of the Father
from within, the humanity was no longer liable to the assaults of the
infernals, but was fully glorified or divine. This, however, was a
gradual work, as is evident from the voice from heaven, ‘I have both
glorified, and will glorify it again.’ In order, however, that
we may form any just idea of what this process was, or understand any
thing of the nature of redemption, it is necessary that we should
understand something of the nature of the union between the divine and the
human in the Lord, and the cause of their apparent separation.
With men, by the laws of generation, the internal is from the father, the
external from the mother. In this way the human race is propagated,
and children are born, who are altogether distinct from the parents.
For souls are multiplied, which are forms recipient of life from the Lord,
the only source of life, and each individual is gifted with a distinct
consciousness, and also with free-agency and the responsibleness of his
own being. In proportion as children advance towards a state of
maturity, they gradually assume the direction of their own understandings,
and learn to acknowledge one Father, God. Thus every thing in the
order of society and in the leadings of Divine Providence, tend to
obliterate the natural relation of father and mother, and to mingle all
men into one family of brethren. This can be fully effected only in
the spiritual world, where all adventitious circumstances give place to
the creative influence which is perpetually renewing the face of all
things. It is obvious, too, from enlightened reason, as well as from
revelation, that the laws of divine order require things to be thus.
Man is a form recipient of life from the Lord. The human soul, in
its inmost essence, is no more than this. It is continually gifted
with life from the Lord; and whether this life shall continue to be good,
must ever depend upon the personal acknowledgment of the fact by every
individual man, and a sincere endeavor to obey the commandments. The
natural relation, therefore, of father and child, as implying protection
and providence on the one part, and dependence on the other, is one that
ought to come to an end.
We have spoken of the life of man, of the nature of his internal and the
origin of his soul, with the design of illustrating, by a reference to it,
the truths of the New Church in relation to the assumption of the humanity
by the Lord. What we have said of man, is not applicable, in the
same sense, to the Lord, and this distinction is to be understood, before
any true idea can be formed of Him. His internal was Jehovah
Himself. It was not a form recipient of life, as the internal man
is, but had life in itself. This distinction is most important to be
understood and to be kept in mind. Indeed it is absolutely necessary
to a right understanding of the subject, being no less than the essential
distinction between what is divine and what is human, what is infinite and
what is finite. It is not strange, therefore, that those who
disregard or lose sight of it should become bewildered in their
imaginations, and follow the delusions of their own fancies. Hence
the doctrine of two or more persons in the Godhead, as if what is divine
were not one and permanent, but capable of division like what is human,
and subject to change and modification. Hence, too, the doctrine
that the Lord was mere man. These strong delusions, with other
modifications of the same essential falsity, are built upon the
supposition that the Lord had an internal, a principle of will and
understanding, a soul, distinct from the Father. And so long as men
make this supposition the ground of their arguments and reasonings, there
is no limit to the falsities that will be engendered. The nature of
redemption, of divine glory, and of the regeneration of man, must continue
to be enveloped in a thick cloud. Some will insist that we can never
know who the Son is; for this is known only to the Father. Others
will attempt to come unto the Father by their own wisdom, while they are
turning their thoughts away from the Son. But the answer of the Lord
will be ‘ye neither know Me, nor My Father.’
If we are disposed to regard the Lord's internal as Jehovah Himself, and
remember that He had not an internal like another man, but that the
humanity which He assumed was the external, which was derived from the
mother only, we may gradually learn to understand both how He was tempted
and how He overcame. Through this external, which was in all
respects like the external of another man, He was assaulted and tempted by
the evil spirits of hell, as we are. But His internal, being
Jehovah, He overcame them by His own proper power. ‘His arm brought
salvation unto Him.’ While reading the Scriptures, we may
learn to understand something of the work of redemption, and of
glorification. The Lord redeemed man by overcoming the temptations
to evil which the infernal spirits infused into the maternal humanity, and
by the same means the Son was glorified. We have already said that
He overcame by His own divine power. This power being exerted
through a medium which knew no disobedience to its influence, but always
did the will of the Father upon earth as it is done in the heavens, the
conquest and victory were complete. It is indeed this same power
which now overcomes evil in us, so far as it is overcome, that is, so far
as we permit it to work within us, to will and to do. This is the
way in which we follow Him in the regeneration. Not by exerting our
own strength, and exercising our own wisdom, and endeavoring by our own
reasoning to judge of what is good by searching out what is expedient; but
by acknowledging that of our own selves we can do nothing, and by
ascribing all the power and the glory to Him who must be in us before we
can have life. Thus is the regeneration of man, an image of the
glorification of the Lord. The victories which the Lord is
continually gaining over the evil and the false, within the wills and
understandings of those who are suffering Him to regenerate them and to
reign over them, are, however, only partial and incomplete. There is
still a will and understanding of their own which are not altogether
subdued. The divine influx, which is, in itself, an emanation from
infinite love and wisdom, is not permitted to operate without hindrance or
modification. The natural will and understanding, which constitute
the real proprium of man, can be subdued only by little and little.
And though it is not man, but the Lord in man, who fights and overcomes,
yet the evil and the false are not entirely overcome and expelled, because
man does not entirely submit his own will and understanding to the
operation of divine influx. They are therefore only removed from the
centre to the circumference, where they remain inefficient and harmless so
long as man depends upon the Lord for power over them and salvation from
them, but ready to rush in and seize their victim the moment he ascribes
the merit to himself, and thus relies upon his own strength to resist
their assaults.
The apparent separation between the Father arid the Son, is a subject
which is perhaps more difficult to speak upon, even than that we have been
considering. But when examined it will be found to be an essential
part of the same process of redemption and glorification. In His
state of humiliation, when the assaults of the infernals, operating upon
the hereditary evils of the maternal humanity, were most apparent, the
Lord spoke and prayed to the Father as to a being distinct from Himself.
In this way, He always manifested that all His power, even in overcoming
in the lowest and most external victories, was derived from within.
He did not cause it to rain fire and brimstone from heaven to destroy the
bodies of His enemies, but overcame the evil with good. In
descending, as it were, into the ultimates of His creation, He came not to
destroy the law, but to fulfill. It was still the Father within who
did the works. But in this state of humiliation, there was the
appearance of actual separation. He who gave the law and He who
fulfilled it, appeared to be distinct from each other. The Lord
seemed to take a law from a higher being, which was to govern His life.
He spoke of the ‘commandment which the Father had given Him, what He
should speak.’ But in His state of glorification, He spoke
with Jehovah as with Himself, and asserted His own essential divinity.
The appearance, of which we have been speaking, is the necessary
consequence of the state we are in as degenerate, fallen men, and will
subside only in proportion as we have His joy fulfilled in ourselves, by
following Him in the regeneration. We shall in this way learn that
the laws of God make one with His love and wisdom, that they are Himself.
That He is truly human, nay the ONLY ΜΑΝ, and that we become men only by
becoming images of Him. That by fulfilling these laws upon earth, as
man, He was as really and fully engaged in a divine and glorious work, as
when He formed the everlasting hills, and meted out the heavens with a
span. The only cause of any appearance to the contrary is to be
found in our own states. We are always supposing Him to be a God,
afar off, and not near at hand.
It may also be observed that in the regeneration of man, we have an image
of the apparent separation between the internal and the external of the
Lord. In seasons of trial and temptation the internal seems to be so
far removed, as to be almost regarded as a distinct person. We seem
to lose all its immediate influence, and are obliged to act from our
recollection of the laws and precepts which we have stored up in the
memory. But we afterwards learn that the absence was only apparent
absence; and that the internal was not only present in those states, but
was in the very act of preparing for a more full and perfect union with
the external. And the reason why, instead of the presence of the
internal, we perceived the law and the precept, was because the external
state in which we then were, desired a union with the internal which would
have been disorderly and wrong. It had made a separation between the
internal and the precept, the source of the commandments and the
commandments themselves, and therefore the only form under which the
internal could appear was that of law and precept, for under this form
only could union be effected. It is for the same reason, that is, on
account of the external state of the church, that the work of redemption
and the glorification of the humanity, have been almost universally
regarded as having relation to abstract principles of law and justice,
without bearing upon the heart and life. And still farther removed
have been the generality of men from regarding this work and its effects,
as the necessary medium of the spirit which regenerates man. But the
doctrines of the New Jerusalem explain these mysteries, and show what is
signified by the words, ‘the Holy Spirit was not yet, because that Jesus
was not yet glorified.’
